Georgia (49 page)

‘Just thinking,’ she reached out for her suntan oil and rubbed a little into her legs, stomach and arms. She could see now how tanned she was getting, her skin had turned from coffee coloured to a rich dark brown, her white bikini standing out in vivid contrast. ‘I was just thinking about how lucky we’ve been. Even if we don’t get time to appreciate it.’

Three days earlier they were playing in Paris and with over a week before their next gig they had flown down to Barcelona to catch a few days of sunshine and sea.

Rod dropped his towel on to the ground beside her, picked up a bottle of water and guzzled it down before replying.

‘Thousands of miles of travelling, more success than we ever dreamed of, fame, money, the works. And now this place.’

The villa they were staying at belonged to the family of a saxophone player who had joined them for many of the European gigs. Set amongst pine trees, above a deserted stretch of beach, it was the closest Georgia had ever seen to paradise.

Seen from the road it looked like a dilapidated fortress, peeling shutters firmly shut against the strong sun, a neglected, abandoned home. A huge old door creaked open as if protesting against visitors, but once inside, it was obvious it had been cared for with love, its outer neglect protecting it from unwanted intruders.

Designed in a traditional Spanish style, the villa was built round a central courtyard, complete with fountain, palm trees and a vine-covered pergola. A Moorish influence was strong, with vivid blue and yellow tiled steps to the upper floor, white stone walls and wrought-iron balconies. Purple bougainvillaea and scarlet hibiscus, scrambled up the walls. Urns full of bright orange lilies, geraniums and daisies filled each nook and cranny. Everything was simple, cool marble floors, heavy dark furniture, brightly coloured, scattered rugs and huge cushions, walls painted dazzling white. Yet for all its simplicity it was comfortable and inviting. Tiled bathrooms adjoined each of the spacious, airy bedrooms, a kitchen with every modern device to make their stay a happy one.

Two local women came in daily to clean, bringing with them fresh bread, salad, fruit and eggs. They scuttled about their work, heads down, clearly intimidated by five half naked young men with only one woman. Georgia’s attempts at making herself understood were met by laughter and a torrent of fast Spanish.

The other boys had left yesterday to drive into Lloret further along the coast. Two days of swimming alone in clear turquoise sea, sunbathing without admirers and drinking the local wine had been enough for them. They wanted excitement which really meant girls and right now Georgia was hoping they wouldn’t bring them back here.

‘Perhaps you should have gone with the boys?’ She turned over on to her stomach, resting her chin on her hands. ‘I wouldn’t have minded being on my own.’

‘I can live without the fleshpots for a while,’ Rod laughed softly, dropping down on to his towel and leaning back with the sun on his face. ‘I don’t mind you being silent, it’s nice. Just unexpected that’s all, after last night.’

They had sat out on the terrace overlooking the sea. Watching the sun like a huge fiery orange slowly dip into the sea. Talking about their childhood, revealing things to each other that once were taboo.

Rod was different without the other boys around. He dropped his sarcasm, his cynical approach to life, and when he began to admit what a failure he felt as a child, Georgia understood what had made him the way he was.

‘I thought it was my fault because my Dad left. Somehow I was responsible for the lack of money, the slum we lived in and Mum’s bad temper. When she started to go out all the time drinking, I kept quiet, never admitting how much I wanted her home with me. She caught me once cuddling and sniffing her nightdress, she accused me of being weird. She never understood it was because I missed her, that her perfume kind of made me feel safe.’

He told her that he worried because he was too skinny. That he saved up to buy a bullworker and hid it in the wardrobe. He spoke of men that came late at night, his mother laughing one minute, crying the next. The insecurity with the lovers who didn’t leave.

‘Some were nice,’ Rod grinned. ‘Took me to Southend or to the football, but I was afraid to like them in case they left too. But mostly they were mean types. They hit me when Mum wasn’t around, resented me as much as I loathed them.’

‘Did you ever tell her how you felt?’

‘You can’t tell Mum anything. She’s either on a high when she laughs at everything, or so low she’s practically suicidal,’ Rod grimaced. ‘If I went out she said I didn’t care about her, if I stayed in she said I was spoiling her chances. I couldn’t win with her.’

‘How do you feel about her now?’ Georgia asked.

‘Embarrassed more than anything,’ his dark eyes looked thoughtful. ‘She’s so flashy and empty-headed. I haven’t got anything in common with her, but because I’m making money she pretends I mean everything to her.’

Georgia remembered her from the boys’ funeral. Bleached blonde hair piled up in elaborate curls, wearing a black dress so low cut and tight it had embarrassed everyone. Not for one moment had she looked distressed at the boys’ deaths. Her dark flirtatious eyes had merely wandered off to the more famous people present. She hadn’t even shown any real pride in Rod’s bravery at trying to save Ian and Alan.

‘It’s because of her you don’t like women much,’ Georgia said softly. ‘I mean, you pull so many girls, but you don’t choose them for company do you?’

‘I guess that’s right,’ he laughed. ‘Except for you I can’t ever remember telling a girl the truth. I put on an act about everything. I don’t feel anything inside for them. It’s like there’s a basic function missing.’

‘Emotion,’ she said. ‘But you do feel that Rod. You felt it when Ian and Alan died, it comes out in music. It’s there all right, you just haven’t had anyone tap the right keys.’

‘We’re a lot alike,’ he said ruefully as they moved back towards the house once the wind turned chilly. ‘Tell me why you don’t trust anyone enough to give love another stab. You can’t still be mourning for Ian?’

They lit a log fire in the huge old hearth, sitting on cushions close to the blaze, opening yet another bottle of wine.

‘I don’t think Ian has anything to do with it,’ she said at length after staring into the blazing logs, thinking about Rod’s question. ‘I’ll always miss him, just the same way I miss Helen, my old friend. But I was never convinced we were made for each other.’

‘The other guy?’ Rod looked round at her and lightly touched her hand. ‘Ian told me there was someone before.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I keep telling myself it’s stupid to hold a torch for someone who doesn’t give a toss for me. But it isn’t only him either, there’s my mother too.’

Rod listened carefully as she told him the whole story about running away from home.

‘Why hasn’t she come forward?’ she asked him. ‘I mean my records have sold in just about every corner of the globe. How can she have missed seeing my picture or read things in the papers? It must be that she changed her mind about me, decided I was to blame. What other reason could there be for her silence?’

‘You’re in a position now to do something about it,’ he said thoughtfully, gazing into the fire, poking it viciously. ‘You’ve got enough money and connections to get her found. Why don’t you? At least that way you’d know for sure.’

‘I’m scared too,’ she whispered. ‘Everyone I’ve ever cared about deeply has gone. Sometimes I think I’m some sort of jinx. Peter, Celia, Helen and Ian. Even my real parents abandoned me. On top of all that I’m afraid if I dig too deeply I might just meet up with Brian, my foster father again.’

‘Maybe that’s the real hurdle you need to overcome,’ he said. ‘That man can’t hurt you again. By facing him you might be better for it.’

Rod’s high cheek-bones stood out in sharp relief lit only by the fire, his black hair shining like a raven. A primitive face, like so many of the Spanish men, the whites of his eyes and teeth contrasting brilliantly against his dark skin.

‘I know it sounds daft,’ she said reluctantly. ‘But recently I’ve had a feeling he’s watching me.’

‘That is daft,’ Rod laughed, throwing back his hair. ‘You’ve hardly stayed still long enough for us to watch you, let alone him.’

‘I don’t mean he’s actually watching me in the flesh,’ she explained. ‘More a feeling he’s observing me from a distance, noting everything about me, biding his time, if you like.’

The reason she’d been silent all day was not from dwelling on the past, their lack of time to enjoy things, or even the thought of Brian watching her. It was Rod. She had a feeling something was starting up, something she couldn’t fight, avoid, or protect herself from. Since Ian’s death they had grown close. But last night there had been a brief fiery spark of something more. Should she quash it now? Save any further heartache, or take the initiative and worry about the results later?

This morning she’d woken without any solution, and silence had seemed the only way out, just as it had the morning after Brian raped her. By doing nothing and saying nothing she was preventing either steps back, or forward.

They had raked out the fire. Turned out the lights and walked together up the tiled stairs to the rooms above.

The moon shone down into the courtyard, reflecting clearly in the pool around the fountain and picking up the white of a towel left lying on a chair. Enough light to see the gallery on which they stood, wrought-iron railings going right round into a rectangle, dark wood doors invisible against the white stone walls, like yawning holes in a piece of cheese.

‘Back in Stepney I never thought I’d ever see a palm tree,’ Rod said softly. ‘The moon looks as if it’s hanging on it like a Christmas tree bauble.’

It was beautiful. A star-sprinkled sky and the moon lighting up the feathery fronds of the tree.

Rod stood with her at the balcony, two pairs of hands so close on the railing, their sides just touching.

‘Whatever happens I’ll remember this forever,’ he said, so softly it was almost a whisper.

She could feel a current flowing between them, like two magnets so close they wanted to jump across the void. But instinctively she moved a step away to prevent it.

Had Rod’s words meant that he knew something was going to happen? That this was the moment when it started? Or did he mean that seeing the moon and the palm tree was the first time he’d been aware of the beauty of his surroundings?

‘Come with me for a swim?’ Rod jumped up, dipping his hand in the pool round the fountain and splashing some on Georgia’s hot back.

‘You swine,’ she laughed, rolling over on to her back and rubbing the cold water off on the sunbed.

‘Please?’ he said softly, a soft boyish plead in his eyes.

He was tanned almost as dark as Georgia now. His black brief trunks almost disappearing against his skin. His body had filled out remarkably in the last year, good food and a little exercise had given him broader shoulders and muscles in his arms. Slim hips, straight firm legs and a narrow waist coupled with his six foot height was enough to make any girl turn her head and look. But for Georgia it was his smooth olive glistening skin that attracted her and a face which reminded her of Red Indians. Such high cheek-bones, dark narrow eyes which could turn from laughter to anger in a second. A straight, proud nose and thin, stern lips. Even his hair completed the picture. It was much longer now, almost touching his shoulders, straight, sleek with blue black lights. Sometimes she wanted to put a band round his forehead and turn him from just Rod to a warrior.

‘All right,’ she sighed, pulling the band from her hair and tossing it down. ‘I’m just about frying anyway.’

They walked through the arched wrought-iron gates that led on to the patio where they’d sat last night, the tiles warm under their bare feet. There were steps hewn in rocks down to the beach, smooth, as if polished daily by someone they never saw. A small green lizard ran across in front of them, disappearing into a crack in the ground silently.

It was five in the afternoon, the desperate, sweaty heat at noon replaced by gentle soft warmth. A breeze was getting up, whipping little white horses on to the beach.

The nearest house was nearly a mile away, but here they were able to feel as if they were the only two people left in the world.

‘It’s like heaven,’ Rod said, pausing at the bottom of the steps. The last one had a big jump to the beach and he held out his hand to her.

She saw her hand go out to him. Only seconds in reality but it seemed like a lifetime before his fingers closed over hers. That spark again as skin touched skin, and she jumped, right into his arms.

For a moment they just stood together, his arms were round her, chests just touching. Her eyes were on line with his naked shoulders, the sea just visible beyond. Her hands rested on his hips. She dared not look up, not yet.

His hand moved so slowly up from her waist, over her shoulder blades, pausing on her shoulder lightly.

Fingers creeping up her neck, his thumb cupping round her chin, lifting her face to his.

Rod’s eyes were closed, his mouth curved into a smile, just the tiniest glint of white teeth before he bent his head to hers.

Coarse sand between her toes, more blowing up her legs, the breeze taking his hair and hers, bonding them together.

A kiss that made her think of drowning. Sweet, peaceful on the surface, yet already an undercurrent rising to pull her down. His hand was holding her head, the other arm so firmly round her there was no escape, even if she’d wanted it.

She didn’t know how long that kiss lasted. It was frantic, deep, world shattering. Strings inside her only vaguely remembered were being tugged and all the time her hands were caressing his smooth skin, pressing herself closer.

‘Oh Georgia,’ he whispered at length, taking her face in both his hands and holding her away from him a little. ‘Is this for real?’

They held each other as they walked to the sea, hands touching waists; the unexpected nakedness of their skin so available made it seem harder to touch.

The sea was warm. They entered it as one person, walking until it came up to their waists. Only then did Rod turn to her to hold her and kiss her again.